Personal rating of 4 out of 5 stars
4 stars An engaging and fast-paced adventure through the afterlife. This story has a little bit of everything. A shadowy villain, a trusty sidekick, a side romance, an unsure hero, and a fascinating look at the world of the dead. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one but was pulled in from nearly…
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4 stars An adorable and engaging book with plenty of activities to work on various concepts. Most of the pages include some sort of task such as finding items that begin with a certain letter, matching the same items, and locating a certain item. The double-sided pages provide a lot of detail for other tasks…
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(Alternative title: Sammy and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs) 4 stars An adorably sweet tale of a boy and his dinosaurs. After loving the TV adaptation, I was excited to go back and read the original stories that inspired it. This book did not disappoint. The first book introduces the reader to Harry and how he…
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4 stars A lovely beast of a book, packed with gorgeous illustrations and complex ideas. Much more intricate than it first appears. When I checked this out from the library, I was expecting the obvious before/after relationships (caterpillar to butterfly, acorn to tree). But this book goes far beyond that. Some are before and after…
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4 stars An adorably sweet guidebook on how to be a purple person. To be honest, on the first read-through I had no context and while I agreed with the steps, I wasn’t sure what the whole purple thing was about. After reading up on the book, I realized it’s a reference to political parties…
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4 stars A wonderful conversation starter for topics of race and understanding other’s perspectives. Latham and Waters use poetry to tell the story of Irene and Charles, fifth-graders based on their own childhood selves, who have to work on a poetry assignment together. Along the way, they learn about each other, how they are the…
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4 stars I have to say, it’s pretty impressive just how split the reviews are on this book. Let’s start with the obvious: the illustrations are pure magic. McWilliam did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life. I loved all the colors and details in each image. It really brought the story to life….
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4 stars More mysterious happenings in need of investigating, this time at Claire’s school. Another great entry in The Haunted Library series. While these are best read in order, there’s enough backtracking and explanation of past events, that one could still enjoy this without having read the first two. While Claire and Kaz investigate the…
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4 stars Another adorable story featuring Tameika and her family from Ashley Franklin and Ebony Glenn (with illustrations by Saba Joshaghani). Similar in style to Not Quite Snow White, this one follows Tameika on a brand new adventure, the expanding of her family. A great story for those expecting the arrival of new siblings or those…
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4 stars Another adorable, fun adventure. This one is a bit spooky with a nice mystery to solve. Great follow up to the first book. It continues the story, providing new mysteries and development of the overall plot, while still leaving some open ends to be discovered throughout the rest of the series. The mystery…
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